New Year's Eve, 1974. One of two WWII soldiers bound together across their cultural backgrounds by war is thinking of ending it all. The world around Archie Jones is also gripped in various degrees of the same Y2K madness that we greeted the end of the millennium with. The last of flower-power-fueled hippies have turned to mysticism (just as the 19th Century English did,) while the religious sects from Jamaica who are from the most recent batch of nearly 200 years of emigration to the UK are singing hymns and practicing asceticism to appear ready and willing to enter the gates of Heaven.
Archie’s problems are more human. A failed marriage that he describes as feeling "like buying a pair of shoes, taking them home, and finding out they don't fit." Thirty years later, it is over. Archie is also hiding guilt from his youthful days as a soldier. As well as seeing that the needle will never move at his dead-end job making perforated mail-outs. His recent reunion with fellow soldier Samad Iqbal offers a brief ray of light into the staid grey of lower-middle-class living. When they rekindle their friendship months before, Samad is highly optimistic. His dreams are about to come true. His arranged marriage will finally bear fruit after twenty years of waiting for his bride to be born and grow into a woman. He has a job in his cousin’s restaurant. And even though this life is far different from his life in Bangladesh, Samad takes pride in his “second life” being better.
As of the year 2000 when "White Teeth" was first published, 99.5 percent of Victorian Literature was out of print. An era that lasted 64 years (including half of the famed Belle Epoque) disappeared from its only existence on shelves in the blink of an eye. In her Dickensian debut, Zadie Smith revisits the tenets of Victorianism and how they apply to the preservation of tradition, morals, and the family bond in the middle of giant shifts in society all filtered through the eyes of the multiple modern cultures, beliefs, and social mores.
With all of its multicultural exploration at its surface, at its heart "White Teeth" is a study in trying to maintain tradition and instill it as what is best for the next generation. Archie’s “divine” intervention leads to his heart being wide open for meeting Jamaican-born/former Jehovah’s Witness Clara. Their similar paths of grief, repression, and its release as enlightenment bond them together across boundaries of both race and age. In turn, their daughter Irie shares both their wide-eyed optimism and cauldron of internal doubt. Later in Irie’s life during her troubled adolescence, she wants to visit Jamaica to find her roots. Upon making this request, the mixture of staunch refusal from her mother and near-comedic indifference from her father is a brilliant example of what sets Smith’s writing apart from Dickens.
“White Teeth” seeks the family sprawl of Victorian-age writing. These are “Great Expectations” hoisted upon the shoulders of children who while loved and provided for, were never prepared for this inheritance (especially given Smith's running motif about the importance of education.) Throughout the story, we are allowed to see their differences and bonding. Two families living side-by-side is the stuff of British serials like “Coronation Street.” In “White Teeth,” Smith employs a Marquez-ian sense of magical realism to hold it all together. Samid’s optimism erodes almost as quickly as his wife Alsana’s interest in him does. However, their commitment to each other and their traditions is their bond. As the parents of twins Millat and Magid, we see the smallest changes in their family unit as the most significant. Born in Britain, Smith’s narrative subjects each of the boys to the whims of modern society. With all their seemingly attentive home life (even having Irie as a “sister,”) they are practically proverbial “latch-key” children working toward the same existence that nearly prevents Archie’s “second life.” In creating these three children, Smith perhaps unknowingly also creates a void within each of them that guides them to the path least taken to self-discovery.
At this time of year when everyone is in a state of reflection and growing optimism toward the year ahead, “White Teeth” asks some very important questions. How do we impart our knowledge and traditions to the next generation? How do we absorb their social and societal changes as our own without tacking our needs onto their experiences which leads to growing up. And at what point must we stop to realize it is the smallest shifts (especially those we fail to acknowledge) that either brand us hypocrites in their eyes or lock us out of having any influence upon further change?
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
2022 MUSIC IN REVIEW: THE LOSS OF "THE GROWER"
There is a new custom on Thursday night. When the excitement of all the new releases coming for New Music Friday peaks at 11 PM, rabid fans immediately begin declaring "Album of the Year" for the most celebrated drummed-up titles. This is not to say that so-called "event releases" that are truly shooting for Sgt. Pepper-like shot-heard-round-the-world zeitgeist moments (looking at you Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, SZA) do not have their importance. However, let's face it, celebrating every album with the same fireworks every week only deters from the impact that a real event release can have.
The real loss however is much farther down the food chain. Without the steady stream of promotion, news stories, and various coverage, too many fantastic releases are lost in the shuffle. Sorry to say, but none of the aforementioned four albums proved to be completely consistent despite having several truly fantastic moments. However, that is where we are. An album, like a film, needs the first weekend's big bang to prove its worthiness. Then, two years later, hopefully, it still has not left the charts (Harry Styles.)
So small records that lack fiery singles (The Stroppies' brilliant, understated "Levity") and those whose selected pre-releases actually cannibalize each other (Disq's flawed but daring "Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet" or Ghost's finely-tuned homage to post-Black Album Metal "Impera") are omitted from the races for the coveted AOTY. Why? The answer is simple. Without the headstart from either fans or critics, the classic "grower" album has no room in a Top 200 that is quickly filling up with the same releases that are being streamed every day. (As of this publication, 85 releases on the Top 200 have logged over 100 weeks, with another 29 charting for over 52 weeks. So, 60 places for a new release to land and hopefully stay.)
There are a lot of releases that need to find the right space and time to break through the busy shells of our electronic (and human) lives. Music as "appointment listening" can be fun - but means that we also must immediately develop our opinions on the tunes consumed. In turn, some of those releases quickly disappear leading to even less brand loyalty (the dreaded "mid" syndrome of too many albums from 2022 to count) or worse - forcing us to listen more only to continue to prove or hold our first impression-conceived notions. And who wants to spend one's valuable time begrudgingly listening to what we are "supposed" to like?
Instead, that time should be used to develop your love of a new record. One that intrigues you but defies your expectations. After having several blistering singles, The Stroppies released some singles and then an album that was notably less ebullient and more mid-tempo. Still, I listened and programmed songs into lists searching for that "surprise" effect. After about ten listens to the record (I know, it is a lot for me,) the idea of a band rebuilding in the middle of a worldwide pandemic started to surface. Songs revealed themselves to be coded responses to even trying to summon the inspiration to play. Music quickly coalesced into keyboards and weird sounds being created as they were trying to write music in their homes and without the normal chemistry or promise of being a band. After 25-30 albums that were pre-announced as "our lockdown album," the once spiky punky Pop of the little band slipped one by everyone. "Levity" eschews infectious hooks (for the obvious reason) and instead pushes forward on the path once lit up by Flying Nun artists. The Stroppies stripped their sound all the way down to honestly make a record that sounded like nothing on their dreaded RIYL list. As a result, with its hidden treasure map of hooks (that loop on "The Perfect Crime,") hidden jangle ("Smilers Strange Politely" could single-handedly jumpstart Lo-Fi) and the mysterious new vocal harmonies consistently confound/astound me. A success that would have been lost if only I was looking at singles, or passed on half an album as "directionless." In other words, AOTY material.
